MIAMI-DADE, Fla. – After Yarisleidy Cuba Rodriguez died during childbirth in March at Jackson Memorial Hospital, her baby girl was in the middle of a custody fight between her relatives in Miami-Dade and her dad in Cuba. That fight came to an end Tuesday.
Cuba Rodriguez's cousin Nirobis Pacheco, who lives in Miami-Dade's Kendall area, was granted temporary custody at first, but now a paternity test ordered by the Miami-Dade County family court established Yoelvis Gattorno, who lives in Cuba, is the baby's biological father.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Migna Sanchez Llorens said Gattorno has custody of the baby. He is within his right to take his baby girl to Santa Clara, the capital city of the capital of the central Cuban province of Villa Clara, where he lives.
Gattorno said he wants his daughter to be identified on the birth certificate as Valeria Gattorno Cuba.
During the dispute, Pacheco said Cuba Rodriguez, 34, who was born in Cuba, did not want her two daughters to grow up in the Communist island. Pacheco said Tuesday that she was not surprised. She just hopes Gattorno won't return to Cuba with his U.S.-born daughter.
The late mother's "dream was always to be here with her daughters," Pacheco said last month.
Gattorno will not be allowed to leave South Florida until doctors clear the baby medically. The judge also decided Valeria's 15-year-old sister, who lives in Miami-Dade, but is not Gattorno's daughter, must be allowed to have visitation time with the baby.
